Beneath the Skies
by reciprocityfic
Summary: Rick Grimes goes on a road trip with friends after graduating college, and learns that home tends to be found in a person, rather than in a place. Part of The Richonne Writing Network's AU Scene Writing Challenge.


**Author's Note:** Hello! I wrote this oneshot for the AU Scene Writing Challenge with The Richonne Writing Network. It's more a short story than it is a single scene, though. I picked Road Trip AU, and this little fic was born. I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

When his best friend asked him to go on a road trip with him after he graduated college, he didn't agree to it right away. Instead, he and Shane played twenty questions over it for at least an hour one hot April afternoon, in some dim, smoke-filled bar close to Emory's campus, drinking cold beers while Charlie Parker played in the background.

"C'mon, Ricky," Shane urged, slapping his friend on the shoulder before signaling the bartender and asking for another drink. "You been so busy quotin' Tennyson these past four years, we haven't been able to do anything but sit in dinky places like this," he said, motioning around the space they were in, "and shoot the breeze every so often."

Rick rolled his eyes at Shane's reduction of his studies.

"Did more than quote a dead poet for four years, bud."

Shane laughed.

"You know I'm just messin' with ya. Guess I don't know what goes on in the process of gettin' a degree in poetry. Prolly 'cause I'm not a fancy, rich-ass, educated kid like you."

Shane hadn't gone to college after graduating high school. Truth was, he didn't have the money, with a mom that had walked out on him when he was six, and a deadbeat dad that was mean and perpetually unemployed because he couldn't stop getting fired for starting fights and showing up to work drunk. So instead, he drifted from job to job and from girl to girl, getting along by the skin of his teeth with the few dollars he always seemed to have in his pocket and his friends' empty couches that he rotated through night after night.

He supposed his and Shane's friendship could seem odd when looked at through the eyes of an outsider. The two of them were total opposites. His parents were loaded. Shane's were either gone or dirt poor. Shane was loud and in-your-face and rough, while Rick was collected and quiet, preferring to sit back and watch. Rick's life was stable and predictable, while Shane flew by the seat of his pants day in and day out, and never knew what the world would throw at him next.

But in the end, those things didn't matter. They were brothers, through and through, in every way except by blood. Had been ever since they were five years old, and Shane found him surrounded by a group of boys on the playground who were taunting Rick for being 'upitty' and 'soft', and Shane had punched a third-grader square in the jaw in his defense.

"Come on," Shane said again, leaning closer to his friend. "It'll be fun. Take a break from all that stuffy shit and dick around a bit."

He sighed.

Sometimes, Rick found himself jealous of Shane. Sure, the guy was an asshole, and his life wasn't a breeze, but he wasn't afraid of anything, and he never let anyone of anything hold him back - not money, not means, not snobby parents with sticks up their asses who always wanted him to live life in their very particular, selfish way to be sure to impress all their high-brow, equally snobby friends.

"Where we goin'?"

"Dunno," Shane said with an unconcerned shrug, like a destination was the most insignificant detail of this theoretical trip. "But remember that girl I was goin' with awhile back? Maggie? She said she's comin', and she's bringing her gorgeous as fuck friend named Rosita, and someone else whose name I can't remember. And I'm inviting Abe, and I'm considerin' hittin' up Daryl from back home and askin' if he wants to go."

Rick hummed, and took a sip of his beer. As the day wore on, the bar got more and more crowded, and now the steady noise of conversation buzzed over the jazzy music.

"So what do you say, brother?" Shane questioned, for what seemed like the millionth time in the past hour or so. "You comin' or not?"

A hastily thrown-together road trip full of people he barely knew didn't really sound like his kind of scene, but at the same time, that's what appealed to him the most. Deciding to go would be such a different kind of choice compared to the ones he usually made, and on top of that, it would _royally_ piss off his folks, who were constantly telling him how they couldn't wait for him to graduate and make something worthwhile of himself. Something for them to finally be proud of.

"You better make this worth my time," he mumbled, and he couldn't help but laugh when his friend let out a loud celebratory shout at his agreement, that made several heads in the bar turn in their direction.

"I'll tell you what, Ricky," Shane told him, pausing to drain his current beer and then swipe the back of his hand across his mouth. "This trip? It's not only gonna be worth your while - it's gonna _change your life_."

* * *

The trip was different than Shane had advertised. When Rick showed up at their meet-up place three weeks later, a medium-sized duffel packed for an indeterminate amount of time in his hand and his skepticism firmly in place, he found Shane alone, leaning against the side of a blue, beat-up Hudson pickup, lighted cigarette hanging from his lips.

"How're all your friends gonna fit in this tiny-ass truck?" Rick asked as he came to stand next to Shane, after throwing his bag in the bed of the pickup.

"Change of plans," Shane mumbled. "Everyone dropped out on me."

" _Everyone_?" Rick asked, eyebrows raised.

Shane nodded.

"Everyone."

Rick saw the clear disappointment on his friend's face, and was about to try and offer up some words of comfort, when something behind him caught his friend's eye. Shane grinned, and took his cigarette out of his mouth, flicking it on the ground and stubbing it out with the toe of his boot.

"Everyone 'cept her," he drawled, and then pushed himself off the truck and began to walk towards the street.

Rick turned his head just in time to see a car pull away from the curb and drive down the street as a woman waved in its direction, her back turned towards Rick. His brow furrowed as he gazed at her. Shane had just got done telling him everyone had bailed, and even so, she didn't look like anyone he'd described to him in the bar last month - at least from behind.

He was about to start to walk towards her himself - towards Shane, too - when suddenly, she turned around.

And he froze.

She was beautiful. _Beautiful._ So beautiful that it seemed almost a crime to use the word to describe her, because it didn't come remotely close to doing her justice. She had long hair that fell to her waist, a slim build that he could tell was strong underneath her patterned dress that hit just below her knees. Her dark mahogany skin seemed to shine in the afternoon sun, and her perfect face captured his gaze and threatened never to let it go. When she smiled at Shane, his breath caught in his throat, and his heart began to beat in double-time. She grinned with her whole being, her cheeks lifting and shoulders raising and chest shaking with an affectionate laugh as she moved to embrace his friend.

His stomach twisted as he watched this new woman and Shane hug, and he was rapidly overcome with a vicious and irrational jealousy, that Shane got to hold her, and touch her, and _know_ her, while he did not.

They began to walk back towards him, Shane's arm slung around her shoulders as the two chatted back and forth. When they were near Rick, they stopped, and Shane motioned to the woman tucked against his side.

"Ricky, I'd like you to meet my friend, Michonne. We met at a party a couple weeks back, and when I told her about our trip, she asked if she could come along with us."

 _Michonne_. He'd never heard the name before, but he immediately took a liking to it. It fit her. It was uniquely beautiful. It was a name that was complex and interesting and demanded his attention. It was the kind of name that she deserved.

"What can I say," she began as she took a step away from Shane and towards him, and her voice enraptured him. It was smooth and low and sounded like a song. "I'll never pass up a chance to see more of the world."

She held out her hand. He reached, trying to steady himself, and shook it. Her skin was soft and warm.

"I'm Rick," he told her, and he felt like he could barely get the words out, with how dry his mouth had become in the past few minutes.

She smiled gently at him, and he felt a hot blush begin to color his cheeks.

"Nice to meet you, Rick," she murmured, and there was a glint in her eyes as she looked at him that he couldn't quite place.

Shane took her bag from her and told her and Rick to get in the pickup. She opened the door and crawled inside, but Rick lingered for a moment, walking around to where Shane was arranging their duffels in the bed of the truck.

He felt stupid, and so, _so_ obvious, asking, but the question would gnaw at him the entire trip if he didn't find out the answer. He decided to get it out of the way.

"You two are just friends?" he asked quietly. His face felt like it was burning up.

Shane snickered, and eyed Rick slyly, reaching out and slapping his friend on the back.

"Yeah, brother. We're just friends."

* * *

He fell in love with her.

Of course he fell in love with her. He'd known that he would from the moment he laid eyes on her. He'd known its imminence and inevitably as surely as he knew his name. He knew it deep in his gut and firmly in his heart. He was going to fall in love with her, and it would be the great love of his life.

He fell fast, and hard, and wholly. He'd fallen in love with her angelic smile the first day they met, and he fell in love when he heard her loud, joyous laugh for the first time. He fell in love as he quickly got to know who she was, talking almost constantly while sitting next to each other in the truck as Shane drove them west across the country.

He fell in love with everything about her. He fell in love with the way she stuck her tongue out of her mouth ever so slightly when she was concentrating. He fell in love with the way her hair fell in her face when she was looking down. He fell in love with the crease that would form between her eyebrows when she was listening intently to a story he or Shane were telling. He fell in love with the scar on her chin that she'd gotten falling off a swing when she was seven, and fell in love with the birthmark on her shoulder. He fell in love with the strands of sun-bleached blonde in her dreadlocked hair and the flecks of gold in her wide brown eyes.

He fell in love with her spirit, and with her appreciation for life and the world around her. He fell in love with her watching her dance to jukebox music in the tiny dive bars they often stopped at in the evenings, moving her body to the beat even if she was the only one on the floor, without a care in the world. He fell in love with her melodious voice singing along as Billie Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie played through the truck's radio, and he fell in love with the way she'd stare out of the window with wonder in her eyes as they zoomed down highways and backroads, landscapes and scenery morphing before their very eyes as they traveled further and further.

He fell in love with her, easily and irrevocably. He breathed in her aura, drowned in her essence, spun in her orbit, and he fell in love with her with his entire heart and mind and soul.

They pulled over on the side of the road one hot afternoon, somewhere in eastern New Mexico, so Shane could take a leak and smoke a cigarette. She walked off a few yards, and he followed her, like a magnet follows metal. She smiled as he came to stand next to her.

"I love it here," she told him. "I love how open it is. How it's so flat that you can see for miles and miles. And the skies are so wide and blue, and there are so many stars at night. It makes me feel small. Reminds you that the world is so much bigger than just you."

"It kinda makes you feel free," he said. "Like you're insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. So why worry, and stress out about every little thing? You don't have to try to be perfect, or be this or that. You're you, and you're here, so just... _live_."

She didn't answer him, and he chuckled self-consciously.

"If that makes any sense," he mumbled, looking away and kicking up a cloud of dirt with his shoe. "I don't know. I think I'm just rambling."

"No, it does," she assured him quickly, reaching out and placing her hand on his forearm, making him close his eyes as a shiver ran down his spine at her touch. "It makes sense. You don't have to live a certain way. If you're present in every moment, and take what the world gives you, whatever that may be...the possibilities are endless."

He grinned, and nodded gently.

"Yeah."

They turned towards each other, and locked gazes. He forgot about the rest of the world, and lost himself in her entrancing gaze. He saw that shining in her eyes, that always seemed to be there when they shared moments like this - the same glint that he found there on the first day he met her, that he still hadn't been able to identify.

After a few long moments, she turned her head away, a nervous chuckle sounding in the back of her throat and a shy smile gracing her face. She looked out once again at the expanse of land before them, and sighed.

"And, God," she began. "It's just _so beautiful_."

"Yeah," he agreed. "But it can't compare to how beautiful you are."

He heard her sharp intake of air as she gasped softly beside him.

The words left his lips without him thinking. He couldn't help it. They were true, and they were what he felt, and he'd been holding so many words and sentiments like that back for the entire trip, that he was unsurprised some finally managed to slip past the barriers in his brain and escape.

He was still morbidly embarrassed, though, and he could feel his face flush at a record speed. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came, and he closed it again. He filled up with fear - fear that he'd made her uncomfortable, fear that she didn't return his affections, fear that he'd forever ruined their relationship, fear -

"Rick?" she murmured, her voice unsteady.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed once, trying to prepare himself to see an expression of disgust or disapproval on her face.

But that wasn't what he saw when he finally managed to open his eyes and turn his head.

Instead, she was staring at him with a thoughtful expression on her face, the confounding glint in her eyes stronger than he'd ever seen it before. He bit his bottom lip, and gazed back at her curiously. He was about to ask her what was wrong, but before he could, she stood up on her tiptoes, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.

He didn't react for a short second, as shocked as he was. But as soon as his brain processed what was happening, he responded in kind, melting into the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her flush against his body.

He'd never kissed anyone quite like this before, and it felt like fire was rolling over every inch of his skin, creating the most pleasant and exhilarating burn. He couldn't breathe, but he didn't dare pull away. Instead, he inhaled her, and tried to pull her closer. Their mouths opened and their tongues found each other and he clung to her like it was his one mission in life. Maybe it was, he decided. Maybe he was put on this earth simply to hold her.

They pulled apart only when they absolutely had to, but they didn't let each other go. Instead, they rested their foreheads together, and she twisted her fingers into his hair. Each of them took a few deep breaths, and they were about to come back together when they heard Shane's voice.

"Hey, lovebirds! Ready to hit the road again?"

They jumped apart, but neither one strayed far. When they turned towards Shane, he was staring at them with a devilish grin on his face.

"Shut up, asshole!" Michonne shouted back at him, with a roll of her eyes.

Shane laughed heartily.

She didn't say anything to Rick, but when he reached out to take her hand, she didn't pull away, and twined their fingers together. They climbed back into the truck and she didn't let go of his hand. As Shane pulled back out onto the road, she shifted closer to Rick, and laid her head on his shoulder. The three of them continued on, on the road and beneath the skies.

And even though he was more than one thousand miles away from Atlanta, he felt like he was home.

* * *

 **A/N:** There ya go! Just to let you know, I'm hoping to get the next chapter of A Slight Return Home done and posted at least before Christmas. It's been delayed because of finals, baking, etc. :/

Also, if you haven't already, check out The Richonne Writing Network! It's full of wonderful, talented writers who contribute great stories for different kinds of challenges, round-robins, and other projects. We have an account on here, and on Tumblr!

Let me know what you thought of this! And see you all soon!

xoxo,  
Rebekah


End file.
